Sensor Based Detection of Implant Loosening in Total Hip Replacements
The main objective that the SMART-HIP Consortium intends to achieve is the development of a new intelligent hip prosthesis, enabling timely and accurate diagnosis of bone loosening, thus allowing for a fast and reliable support to the orthopaedists while deciding upon revision surgery of joint replacements.
The Project
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union‟s Seventh Framework Programme managed by REA- Research Executive Agency, FP7/2007-2013 under Grant Agreement no. 606335
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Background
A significant amount of total joint replacements fail because the prosthesis becomes loose or because of osteolysis, and the prosthesis must be replaced. Bone loosening is usually diagnosed by radiography and clinical symptoms, but pre-operative radiographic diagnosis by loosening has a sensitivity of 80%, and a considerable number of revision surgeries are not necessary because loosening of the total joint replacement was diagnosed false positively. Currently clinically applied methods of assessing implant fixation and implant loosening are of sub-optimal precision, leading to unsecure indication of revision surgery and late recognition of bone defects.